Love Slave for Two

Chapter 26

“Bloody hell!”

“Yell a little louder, Ty, I don’t think the neighbors heard you,” Nevvie snarked as she walked into his office. “What’s wrong?”

Storm clouds brewed in his blue eyes, as deep and threatening as any in the June skies outside.

Time literally flew, it seemed. Life was heaven with her two boys. She rarely had nightmares, and her individual relationship with each man had deepened to the point she didn’t care where she ended and they began. She and Tyler could finish each other’s sentences. He wouldn’t send anything to his agent unless she’d sat down with it for editing first. Nevvie was now a senior manager at Thomas’ office, overseeing several project managers in addition to being Thomas’ personal assistant. It was a juggling act with her time, but she loved every second of it.

“I’ve lost one of my files. Apparently I didn’t name it what I thought, and I cannot find the blasted thing.”

“What is it?”

“Notes for a character for the novel I’m working on. I wrote a whole character outline when I was working on the last book and meant to use it now, but I can’t find it.”

She leaned in the doorway. Considering he didn’t even look at her and she was wearing one of his chambray shirts, unbuttoned, and nothing else, he was definitely distracted.

“What about your back-up CDs?”

He scowled. “Perhaps.” Then he had a thought. “Oh, bloody hell! I might have worked on that on the desktop in Thomas’ office when my laptop was out for repairs.”

“Want me to look?”

He glanced at her and did a double-take. He crooked his finger and motioned her to him, kissing her. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to ignore you.”

She sat in his lap and put her arms around his neck. “‘Bout time you noticed,” she pretended to pout. “I was starting to think you’d gone totally gay on me.”

He laughed, hugging her and patting her thigh. “No chance of that with you around. Yes, I would appreciate if you’d take a look for me while I start on my back-ups. I think it’s called ‘character london’ or something. It’s a man named London Baxter.”

In Tom’s office, she powered up his desktop. Thomas was outside mowing and taking care of a few items on Tyler’s honey-do list. She started her search, finding a multi-level directory Tyler had created in the documents area. It looked like a full back-up of Tyler’s laptop documents file section and would take a while to go through. Most of the folders and files were dated at least six months prior, with one eight months old. That one, a top-level file titled halloween-script-nev.doc, caught her attention. She opened it.

Her finger hesitated over the mouse button. She’d been prepared to close out the file when she started reading. The title: “How to Properly Seduce a Love Slave.”

Barely able to breathe, she hit print, and with an unsteady hand took the two single-spaced pages from the printer to read again.

Thomas took a break from his yard work to get a glass of ice water and cool off. He stopped by Tyler’s office. “What’s up?”

Tyler looked up from his laptop at Thomas’ bare chest and snug shorts. “Me, if you and Nevvie keep walking around here mostly naked.”

“It’s ‘nekkid,’ if you want to say it right.” Thomas kissed him. “What’s going on?”

“I’ve got a missing file. Nevvie’s looking on your desktop for me. I’m going through my back-ups—”

A door slamming somewhere in the house startled them.

“What the hell?” Thomas said.

They investigated. Nevvie wasn’t in Tom’s office, and they found their bedroom door locked.

Tyler and Thomas exchanged puzzled looks. Tyler knocked. “Nevvie? Are you all right?”

They pressed their ears to the door and heard dresser drawers opening and slamming, punctuated by the distinctive tone of her sobs.

Thomas knocked. “Nev, sugar, what’s wrong? What’s going on?”

They nearly fell over when she flung the door open. Her face looked white; she’d put on jeans and had most of the buttons done up on the chambray shirt. Her eyes were puffy, nose red. She shoved two pieces of paper at them before slamming the door in their faces again and locking it.

Nevvie’s hands trembled as she dressed, panic taking over. How dare they? The script completely outlined the night of the Halloween party. She would have been willing to sit and talk to them about it, ask for an explanation, until she reached the bottom of the document: Hopefully by the end of the party she’ll be begging for us. The perfect little slave, our mission complete.

How could she have misjudged them so badly? How could she ever trust herself again? She’d fucked up and let Alex control her, he damn near killed her. What did these two have in store for her now? Perfect little slave?

No. Never again.

Then her rage took control. Never again would she let a man hurt her. Fuck them, she didn’t need anyone.

Tyler ended up with the papers and he juggled them, nearly dropping them until he got them in his hand and turned right-side up. He blanched when he read them.

The slave girl script for the Halloween party.

“Oh, no.” He dropped them and frantically knocked. “Nevvie,” he pleaded, “sweetheart, please let me explain.”

“Fuck you, Paulson. Just go fuck yourself, because you’re never getting your dick in me again, that’s for goddamned sure!”

Thomas picked the papers up and read them, closed his eyes and swore. “Jesus fucking Christ, Tyler. I thought you deleted this. You stupid shit. I knew we should have just told her how we felt. You and your fucking games.” He shoved Tyler out of the way. “Nevvie, please, talk to me.”

The door flew open again, Nevvie fully dressed, purse and keys in hand. She shoved past them. “Fuck you too, Kinsey. You’re a couple of goddamned assholes.”

Tyler tried to catch her arm and she pulled away. “Don’t fucking touch me,” she warned, holding her key like a weapon. Her eyes narrowed, the color high in her face. “If either one of you ever fucking touches me again, I’ll castrate you with my bare hands!” She stalked toward the front door.

Both men followed and she turned on them, tears streaming down her face. “I trusted you guys! I thought you really loved me and now I find out you fucking played me. This was all some sort of game to you right from the start, wasn’t it?”

Thomas held his hands out to her, pleading. “No, Nevvie, it wasn’t like that, seriously. We wanted that night to be special.”

“Yeah, it was real special, all right. Some sort of sick fucking game. I love you! You wanted to use me for your sick fantasy. I thought we were playing that for fun, not for real. Is that all I am to you, a fucking slave?”

Tyler wanted to take her hand and knew he’d likely pull back a bloody stump. “Sweetheart, we do love you! We’ve loved you from the moment you first entered our lives. After you were living here, we decided we wanted to make you part of our lives.”

“Oh, so you go ahead and pull some sort of mental shit on me, get me under your spell and make me fall in love with you instead of doing what normal people would do and say, ‘Hey, we think you’re cute and we’re bisexual, would you like to have some fun?’”

Thomas pushed Tyler out of the way. “Nevvie, we were afraid we’d scare you off.”

“Oh sure, because training a sex slave is a lot better than telling someone the truth from the start. Fuck you, Kinsey.” She jabbed her finger at Tyler. “And especially fuck you, Paulson. You’re a manipulative asshole.”

She reached for the door and Thomas tried again. “Nevvie, where are you going?”

“I’m getting the hell out of here. I’m not sticking around to see what else you have in store for me. I swore after Alex I’d never let anyone control me again, and I was too fucking dumb to see that’s exactly what I let the two of you do to me. Sorry, Master, I’m not asking permission. I’m getting boxes and moving out. Cancel all my credit cards and take my name off all the accounts, I’m done with both of you. I’ll be out of here in a couple of hours. Oh, and by the way, I fucking quit.” She slammed the door.

Stunned, Tyler slumped against the wall. Thomas grabbed him by the shirt. “You were supposed to delete the goddamned file! You told me you did!”

“She must have found a copy on your desktop. I forgot I copied the directory there when I used your computer.”

Thomas slammed Tyler into the wall, hard, then ran down the hall to their bedroom. Outside, Nevvie’s car peeled out of the driveway in an angry squeal of tires.

Thomas returned less than a minute later. He’d changed into jeans and a T-shirt and stormed past Tyler, roughly grabbing his arm and dragging him. “Come on, dumb fuck, let’s go after her.” He turned, glaring, jamming his finger in Tyler’s face. “I never should have listened to you. If we lose her because of your stupidity, I’ll never forgive you.”

He flung the door open and jogged for the Ridgeline. Tyler numbly followed.

Nevvie gave up fighting her tears and sobbed. She loved them, and now it turns out she was a fucking game. They’d planned to get in her pants the whole time.

Reason tried to regain a foothold in her panicked mind. But they rescued me from Alex.

Fuck them. Someone would have called 911 eventually. Or maybe she’d be better off if he’d killed her. That was preferable to the gaping wound where her soul used to be. Her cell phone rang, and she angrily hit the end button, sending it to voice mail.

She loved them, both of them, would have done anything for them. To see Tyler’s meticulously calculated agenda in black and white shocked her. As always, Tyler had planned everything. He’d carefully researched and scripted it. No doubt he’d spent weeks gathering the costume components.

And Thomas going along with it? It must be Tyler’s plan. Thomas was smart, but he didn’t have the sense God gave a box of rocks when it came to shit like that. That was one hundred percent Tyler.

Once again she’d let herself get sucked in. Yeah, they weren’t abusive like Alex, but it boiled down to the same fucking thing, didn’t it?

She didn’t know where she’d go. She had less than fifteen grand in savings. She wouldn’t have that if it they hadn’t paid for everything, so she could thank them for that. She’d need an apartment. Find a job. Maybe ask Eddie and Pete if she could crash there for a day or two.

She bitterly laughed. No chance those two would play mind games with her. They were sweet, but definitely not her type, and she wasn’t theirs.

Her hands shook, her stomach bound up in painful knots. The boys were her world. She saw the three of them growing old together. She loved working with them, having individual relationships with them and their unique triad. She’d never wanted to imagine what it would be like when one of them died, hopefully many long decades in the future.

Both gone, in one day. Worse, the pain and betrayal ripped through her, fracturing her universe into a million pieces. Less than three miles as the crow flies from the rat-hole apartment, but she’d felt a million miles away, safe and secure and happy, her life a fairy tale.

Okay, so an X-rated one, but her happily ever after had happened, times two.

Would she ever feel that joy again? Worse, could she ever trust again? How would she ever find one man who could be to her what those two were—her rock and her soul?

She sobbed at the thought and angrily beat the steering wheel. Then Nevvie spotted a huge pile of empty boxes stacked outside the front door of a liquor store. She pulled in.

Nevvie backed in and started loading the trunk and backseat, still crying and angrily muttering under her breath.

She fit as many boxes as she could carry in the Acura and pulled out of the parking lot, headed for home.

Well, her soon-to-be former home.

Nevvie didn’t realize someone watched as she loaded the boxes.

In her anger and anguish, she never noticed the battered Ford Escort pull out behind her and follow a short distance behind.